


When I Look At You

by icyvanity



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexuality, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Hockey, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Retirement, Romance, Skateboarding, Slow Burn, The Cat Gets Them Together, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 07:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19372456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyvanity/pseuds/icyvanity
Summary: Alternate Title: 5 Times Kent Parson Accidentally Makes a Fool Out of Himself in Front of His Crush and 1 Time He Does It On Purpose





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShebaRen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShebaRen/gifts).



> Fulfills the prompt "the cat gets them together", as well as for the Parse Prompt Week Day 1: "Kit" Challenge
> 
> Title from the song "When I Look At You" by Miley Cyrus

Kent Parson would like the record to state that he is _not_ actually a complete fool when it comes to romance. Usually. Back in his NHL days (which seemed a lot longer ago than they actually were) Kent was _the_ most eligible and desirable bachelor, with game in all senses of the word. Guys and girls and nonbinary babes swooned over him with a single Kent Parson Wink™, eager to get their hands all over his “Stanley Cup”, as one partner so eloquently put it (the same one who he caught trying to sneak out of his apartment with one of his hockey sticks in hand).

However, apparently things have changed now that he was thirty-five and freshly retired, a few years earlier than he’d hoped due to a career-ending knee injury in his last playoff game. Thankfully, they still won, and his teammates hoisted both him and the cup over their heads after the final buzzer sounded. He left hockey victorious, but after multiple surgeries and months of rehab, he was left with too much time on his hands; captaining an NHL team was a full-time job. Kent hadn’t had such copious free time since he was a teenager.

Kent loved his team, but he didn’t have many friends besides them and his therapist, Martha. It was bittersweet being around the Aces; they had been beside each other for years, but a few months away and he felt he had to distance himself. He barely had any hobbies, though Jack Zimmerman’s boyfriend had been sending him recipes in hopes that he would pick it up. Kent was a mediocre chef, if he was putting things nicely.

One day, Martha suggested something to him in their weekly session.

“What are your thoughts on pets?” she asked.

Kent was laying facedown on the chaise across from her (which he had bought for her as a Christmas present years prior, since he claimed she couldn’t be a real therapist without one). He lifted his head up an inch and said, “I used to have a turtle when I was a kid. My older brother said that he ran away, but I’ve always thought something nefarious happened to him.”

“I expect nothing less than conspiracy theories from you,” she said with a chuckle. “What I should’ve said was, have you ever thought about getting a pet? Now that you’re retired, you would have more time at home to take care of one.”

“Jack and Bitty have a dog,” Kent said, this time speaking directly into the cushion beneath his face. “It seems like a lot of work.”

“I’ve always pictured you as more of a cat person,” Martha said. Kent lifted his head up again and squinted at her; Martha squinted back and sipped her iced tea loudly until he looked away.

Kent sighed. “I don’t know anything about cats.”

Martha stood up and stepped over to her desk. Kent wasn’t watching her, but he felt her drop something onto his back. He fumbled for it and brought it up to his face. _The Care and Keeping of Cats_ , the pamphlet said, with a picture of an angelic tabby kitten on the front.

“It also happens to be a happy coincidence that my office is right above a bookstore. I assume you still remember how to read,” Martha said as she settled down across from him again.

“Assumptions make an ass of you and me,” Kent mumbled.

“At least think about it, Kent. You never know what could happen.”

Kent hated that she was right. He had spent the past decade and a half of his life knowing exactly who he was and what he wanted. He wanted the A, then the C. He wanted to win Stanley Cups and to be a spokesperson for _You Can Play_. He wanted to be good enough to be a Hall of Famer, up there with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.

Now, without hockey, Kent didn’t know what the future held.

Kent rolled off of the chaise, landing on his back. Martha got up and stood by his head, looking down at him. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and she smiled.

* * *

 Part of Kent’s ongoing therapy for his knee involved jogging every day to keep the joint moving and working. Kent used to go for long runs during the off-season to keep his body in prime shape, but he only went for light jogs in his retirement. Sometimes he felt twinges in his knee, but his doctors and physical therapists all assured him that everything was fine, that the twinges were normal.

They still made Kent pause in his jog, to rub down his scarred knee and wait until the ache faded a bit. He worked his fingers over the scars, watching his muscled jump at the slightest pressure. When he was satisfied, Kent straightened up and almost jumped back as he saw something watching him through the window. The eyes were green and lamp-like and Kent realized it was a window of an animal shelter. The eyes belonged to a cat that, once it determined Kent was only a fool and not a threat, closed its eyes and went back to sleep.

The lights above the window were on, meaning that the store was still open. Kent chuckled under his breath. It was too large of a coincidence that he stopped here today, after that conversation with Martha last week. The cat in the window opened its eyes again, as if to check that Kent was still there. He hadn’t been able to see until he moved closer that the cat was a fluffy black monstrosity, whose fur blended in with the shadows in the cat tree it was laying in. The cat blinked at him. Kent blinked back.

“Fuck it,” Kent said, and pushed the door open, watching the cat blink again as the bells above the door rang.

The cat’s name was Kit, which seemed like even more of a coincidence when Kent came up with the name Kit Purrson on the way home from the animal shelter. The cat meowed angrily from inside a large cardboard carrier that Kent had placed in the front seat, buckling it in to protect both the cat from the car and the car from the cat. He didn’t regret his decision yet, but he thought that scratch marks on the inside of his Lambo might change that.

Kent pulled into his parking space in the garage under his apartment building, killing the engine. He got out of the car carefully, trying not to jostle the car and the cat within too much. He ignored the other people in the dark parking lot in favor of reaching for the other door and carefully removing Kit from the car.

Kit growled loud enough to block out the sounds of the other cars and the tenants coming home after a long day at work.

“We’re almost home. Please stop doing that. I don’t think it’s no—”

With his head down, frantically whispering into the holes in the cardboard box, Kent didn’t notice there was someone in front of him until he walked box first into them. He almost lost his hold on Kit and panicked, but the other person threw their hands on top of Kent’s, supporting Kit as he growled.

“Holy shit,” Kent said, heart still beating out of his chest. “I’m so sorry.”

He glanced up and up at the man whose hands were still clamped around his. He had mousy brown hair and kind eyes with crinkly lines around them, which perfectly matched his crooked smile.

“No worries,” the man said, and Kent could’ve sworn he rubbed his thumb across Kent’s fingers. “Do you want this back?”

Kent snatched Kit’s box out of his hands, which shook in his hands as Kit rearranged himself angrily. He opened his mouth to say something— _anything—_ but no words came out. He realized he was staring at the man’s face and blushed furiously.

“Thank you,” he cried out, and then quickly turned away. He all but ran to the elevator and didn’t turn around until he was inside and the doors were closing. The man raised a hand to him right before the doors blocked him from sight, and Kent dropped his head onto the cardboard box. He felt Kit bat at his head from inside and he sighed.


	2. Two

Despite purchasing a number of books about cats and raising them, Kent felt incredibly out of his element. He was good at focusing on things until he perfected them; that’s how he got so far in hockey. But, despite how many how to books he read, and training videos he watched, Kit Purrson managed to evade him at every turn.

The first day after he brought Kit home, he found that his shoes had been freshly urinated in. Although Google claimed cats did this when stressed (Kent could understand how a new home could be a stressful experience—he’d experienced that when he moved to Vegas to play as a teenager), Kit met his eyes with a challenge, as if daring Kent to say something. Kent resisted the urge somehow, and threw the shoes into his laundry room to deal with them later.

Kit seemed to have a love-hate relationship with Kent; while he attempted to destroy Kent’s apartment on more than one memorable occasion in their first few weeks together (how a cat managed to knock a flaming log out of the fireplace and onto the carpet, Kent would never know), Kent would still wake up from accidental naps in the den with a chest full of purring monstrosity. He would barely move when this happened, other than resting a light hand on Kit’s side and scratching softly, which only increased the volume of the purring.

However, there were still the days where Kit demanded things of Kent, and Kent wasn’t exactly used to parenting enough to say no. And that’s how Kent wound up losing Kit in his own apartment.

Technically, it wasn’t  _ in _ his apartment—which he was pretty sure about, since he had only checked each and every room six times. But, he’d passed the window to the fire escape that he must’ve left open last night, when he was playing drinking games with Kit, and he knew that the only place Kit could’ve gone was up.

“Fuck me,” Kent said with a dramatic sigh, and heaved himself out the window. It was a difficult task, considering that his knee didn’t have the same range of movement that it used to, but he eventually made it out onto the fire escape.

Kent lived a few floors up, but he’d never really been afraid of heights. He realized as he gazed out at the dusky skyline that despite the stress of having  _ lost his cat within a week of adopting him _ , he was overall calmer than he had been in the last decade of his life.

As Kent walked up the stairs, calling out Kit’s name and kissy noises—realizing now how catcalling got its name—he heard another voice closeby. There was Kit on the next level up, rubbing his face at someone’s window.

“Kit!” Kent called out in a stage whisper, as if Kit had ever listened to him before, “Stop bothering people!”

Of course, at that moment his upstairs neighbor stuck their head out with a laugh, running his fingers through Kit’s fur. It was the beautiful, confusing man from the parking garage, and Kent almost fell over the railing in shock.

Forget about calm. The stress had returned.

Kent took a step back and the fire escape groaned beneath him; his neighbor’s eyes shot towards him, as did Kit’s, who regarded him with disappointment.

“Oh,” the man said, stepping carefully out his apartment window, “It’s you.”

Kent nodded quickly. “It is you—I mean me. It’s me. You’re you.”

The man laughed. “I’m assuming that isn’t your name, but I guess I didn’t ask.” He walked down a few steps and held out a hand to Kent. “I’m Jeff Troy, but most people call me Swoops.”

Kent had suddenly forgotten all social customs and stared at the man’s hand for far too long before grasping it in his own. Jeff—or Swoops, as he had called himself—had warm, calloused hands that led up to veiny forearms and strong shoulders.

“Kent,” Kent croaked out and then coughed to clear his throat. “Kent Parson.”

Swoops’ eyes widened. “Wait, you’re not the Kent Parson of the Las Vegas Aces?”

“Formerly.”

Swoops winced. “Sorry.”

Kent shrugged, and realized they were still holding hands; he quickly dropped Swoops’ hand, and received a chuckle in return. As he looked at Swoops—probably for far too long, but it was golden hour so who could blame him—he realized that there was some familiarity there as well.

“Your name sounds a little familiar too.”

“I’m not as famous as you, I’m sure,” Swoops said with an easy smile. “I’m a professional skateboarder. Some people say I’m Tony Hawk’s protégé.”

A skateboarder. Teenage Kent would have passed out at the thought. He’d had crushes on the punks who skateboarded next to the hockey rink before he went to the Q, and would watch them as he waited for his mom to come pick him up after practice. He had a million questions that popped back up, things he’d never been able to ask the boys he’d obsessed over.

Instead, Kent said, “Tony Hawk’s pretty fuckin’ lit, man.”

Swoops laughed, running a hand through his hair. “That he is.”

Kit chose that moment to make an appearance, twisting himself through Swoops’ legs and then Kent’s, whom he decided to stretch out his claws against.

“Jesus fuck, Kit!”

Kit meandered back down the stairs to Kent’s apartment, and they watched him go. He jumped back through the window, and Kent sighed.

“I guess that means it’s time to go home,” Swoops said, and Kent looked back to see his eyes crinkling with silent laughter.

“He’s a dumbass,” Kent said simply.


	3. Three

“Are we just going to ignore the fact that you named your cat Kit Purrson?” Jack’s voice came out tinny and vaguely judgmental over the phone, which Kent had laying on his chest as he lay draped across his loveseat. He had his leg propped up on the arm, with an ice pack strapped around his knee. Kit had been intrigued by the ice pack for all of five seconds before he went back to his regularly scheduled activities which, if Kent was judging correctly from the sounds emanating from the kitchen, involved knocking over every item of food in the pantry. He’d since gone quiet again, which was only slightly suspicious.

“Why must you always question my choices?”

“You called  _ me _ , Kenny,” Jack said. “My whole point is to question your choices.”

“I was hoping for advice and not judgement!” Kent said, flinging an arm over his eyes.

“I just think it’s a little vain to name a cat after yourself, but maybe that’s just me,” Jack said. “But back to the problem at hand—which isn’t even really a problem—”

“ _ Jack _ ,” Kent groaned.

Kent could hear Bitty’s soft laughter distantly from Jack’s end, but he was past embarrassment at this point. Kent was suddenly a fool with a crush, not the suave Aces captain that Jack and Bitty were used to. Hell, he’d even successfully seduced Jack for a time, but that was all in the past. Kent had used up his romancing skills and had to resort to asking ESPN’s favorite “hockey robot” for relationship advice.

“Kenny, it’s all going to be okay. I know that it must be hard adapting to life after the NHL, but you just have to channel a bit of your old charm,” Jack said.

“Are you saying I have no  _ charm _ , Zimmermann?” Kent asked haughtily, and Jack responded by hanging up on him.

Kent texted Jack six middle finger emojis. Jack’s reply was a short “Go get him, tiger.”

Kent groaned again and heaved himself off of the couch. His knee was even stiffer than it had been earlier that afternoon, but the numbing cold was a welcome feeling; at least it wasn’t pain.

Kit chose that moment to make an appearance, new spiked collar jingling as he jumped through the open window. Kent hadn’t realized he left it open. Kit trotted over to Kent and Kent noticed something white tucked under the leather of his collar. He bent down with much difficulty and extracted what turned out to be a note.

“For the love of fuck,” Kent said.

_ He’s got a point. Kit Purrson is a little narcissistic _ , the note read.


	4. Four

You would think that a rescue cat—formerly a stray on the streets of Las Vegas, with only rats and moldy pizza to scavenge for among the used condoms and passed out 21 year-olds behind the casinos—wouldn’t be picky. You would think he would eat anything, from dollar store cat food to scraps of chicken that Kent threw to him while making his own dinner.

But, no. Kit Purrson was the pickiest cat known to man. He refused to eat any of the cat food Kent bought him, choosing to meow constantly until Kent let him eat the salmon off of his own plate. When there was no fish to be eaten, Kit would wait until Kent was asleep and then walk all over him crying loudly until Kent gave in and made him a feast at 3 in the morning.

Kent was exhausted after a week of this, and searched around the internet for food for picky cats for hours until he found some brands that were sold at the Whole Foods nearby. Kit glared at him from the foot of the bed as Kent gathered his keys.

“You’re an asshole. Did you know that?” Kent asked, and he could swear Kit winked at him.

Kent’s apartment was in a fairly nice neighborhood mostly populated by young, rich families and even younger influencers constantly following new health fads. Thus, there were at least three Whole Foods grocery stores within the boundaries of his neighborhood, with even more health food stores scattered throughout.

The closest one was only about a three minute drive, and the heat permeated even the confines of Kent’s car. He was glad he was able to go from parking garage to parking garage, but still cautiously jogged to the elevator; he never knew when he was going to get photographed doing something dumb (the last time was when he was in Providence shopping for seafood with Bitty; some photographer caught Kent scared out of his mind with a live lobster in hand and Bitty nowhere to be seen).

He’d never actually been to the pet aisle of the store, usually only stopping there for gelato and ostrich fillets (again, Bitty). He assumed it would be close to the essential oils and other various non-food items, so he headed away from the bulk foods aisles in search of that.

The first non-food aisle did indeed contain essential oils, but even when he squinted Kent couldn’t see any pet food down that aisle. He took a step forward and slammed into a wall of lean muscle.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Kent heard someone say, and he cursed the Egyptians and everyone else who had ever worshiped cats.

Kent jumped back; realizing how dumb that must have looked, he shot Swoops a crooked grin and tried to lean against the shelf next to him, but it turned out to just be a thick fern that toppled over as soon as his elbow touched it. Swoops swooped in (haha) and grabbed it before it hit the ground.

Kent sighed. “Hey there, Swoops. How’ve you been?”

“I can’t imagine how you won so many Stanley Cups being as clumsy as you are,” Swoops said, chuckling. Kent tried not to lose himself in Swoops’ dark eyes.  _ That’s gay _ , he thought to himself and internally shook his head.  _ That’s bi _ , he corrected and grimaced back at Swoops.

“It’s a relatively new development,” Kent replied breezily.

“Of course.”

They both stared at each other, unmoving, until Kent realized he was being weird and dropped his eyes to what was in Swoops’ hands.

“You garden?” he asked, trying not to swoon even more than usual at the sight of organic wood chips.

Now it was Swoops’ turn to grimace. “I dabble.”

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. Gardening’s hot,” Kent said, with an ounce of his regular charm. Swoops’ cheeks reddened slightly and it took all of Kent’s control not to fist pump.

Swoops coughed. “Are you looking for cat food?”

Kent squinted at him. “Has Kit been begging you for seafood too?”

“Begging and succeeding. I never even cooked fish before I met that puffball,” Swoops replied. He nodded towards the next aisle. “I think I just passed it over here.”

Kent wasn’t expecting Swoops to come with him into the next aisle, but he was grateful for the help when he saw the identical cans. He knew what he was looking for and Swoops had keener eyes than him and was able to find it on the first try. Kent grabbed as many cans as he could stack into his arms and followed a laughing Swoops to the cashier.


	5. Five

Kent pinched the bridge of his nose as he paced back and forth through his apartment. “What do you mean, you’re busy? I asked you to catsit three weeks ago, Carly.”

“Parse, you know I would be there if I could. My girlfriend’s family made a surprise visit, and if I miss a second of family time her mother is going to eat me for breakfast, lunch,  _ and _ dinner,” Kent’s former teammate said gruffly over the phone.

Kent tried to be rational, but he’d had plans to head back home to New Jersey for his sister’s graduation for years now. It’s not every day your baby sister gets her Ph.D.

“I understand, Carly. I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m really sorry, man,” Carl said before he hung up and Kent dropped his hand from his ear with a sigh. Kit flicked a look at him from his nest on the couch, and Kent dropped down beside him. Kit nuzzled his head into Kent’s empty hand; Kent scratched behind his ears until Kit’s purring was as loud as an engine. Kit opened his eyes halfway and looked behind Kent; Kent followed his eyes to the shut window.

“You’re going to be the death of me one day,” Kent muttered, and Kit’s purring grew a little louder in response.

Kent heaved himself off of the sofa. He’d closed the window earlier that day due to an afternoon thunderstorm, but the sky was simply overcast now. He pushed the window up and climbed through onto the fire escape. Swoops’ window was open and Kent could hear muffled music coming from somewhere inside the apartment.

“Swoops?” Kent called out, sticking his head through the window. He heard no response, so he tried again. “Are you there, man?”

Swoops’ phone was on the table by the door, across the apartment, so Kent assumed he was inside. Kent glanced at his watch desperately; he had two hours to get to the airport and his mother had instilled a deep fear of being late to a flight into him from a young age. Kent took a deep breath and hoisted himself through the window, hoping he wouldn’t get arrested for breaking and entering. Technically, the window was open, so he reasoned that solely entering had to carry a shorter sentence.

Swoops’ apartment was laid out almost identically to Kent’s, but with skateboard paraphernalia thrown around rather than the hockey gear that had littered Kent’s for over a decade. Kent turned into the hallway, following the muffled music, and decided he would ask Swoops about his love for Miley Cyrus at a later date.

“Hey, Swoops?” Kent tried again, hoping not to catch Swoops too unaware; still, he heard nothing.

Suddenly the door to Kent’s right opened. Kent wished he could say he didn’t scream, despite being the trespasser in the scenario, but Swoops’ responding yell made him feel a little better.

“Kent? What are you doing here?” Swoops asked once he regained his composure.

“I’m so sorry. Your window was open and I was panicking, otherwise I never would have tried to—” Kent began, but Swoops cut him off.

“Hey, it’s okay. You just scared me, is all. What’s wrong?”

Kent was grateful for his immediate understanding. “I’m flying out tonight for my sister’s graduation and my cat sitter just fell through. You’re the closest person I could think of. Is there any chance you could watch Kit until Sunday? I’ll pay you, I swear.”

“Of course I can,” Swoops said, reaching out to hold Kent by the shoulders. “Not a problem, whatsoever.”

Kent heard bells jingling and looked down to see Kit weaving himself between their legs. Kent’s eyes trailed up Swoops’ body and he realized then that Swoops was shirtless, lean muscle peaking through tanned skin. Kent coughed.

“Nice abs,” Kent said awkwardly, and Swoops burst into laughter.

When he recovered, he said, “I’m sure you’ve seen better. Hockey players are ripped.”

Kent tilted his head to the side, “I mean the Aces all probably have better asses than you, but you aren’t too shabby yourself.”

Swoops laughed again and Kent felt his cheeks warming. His wrist beeped and he swore as he saw his alarm going off.

“Go,” Swoops said. “It’ll be okay.”


	6. Plus One

Getting drunk and watching rom-coms was practically an Aces tradition by the time Kent retired, and he was glad his old teammates still wanted to after he left the team. The only time he’d ever mentioned it, Carly had smacked the back of his head so hard he choked on his tequila shot.

Kent was pretty sauced by the time the guys helped him to bed, tucking him into bed like he was their kid not their former captain. He’d taken care of them like that enough times, though, that it was an unspoken rule to make sure everyone was okay by the time they left. Kent trusted Carly to lock the door on his way out, and rolled over as soon as his bedroom door shut.

Kent loved rom-coms, ever since his childhood when he would watch them with his single mother and his sisters on his mom’s nights off from the hospital. He thought they were poetic, despite their cheesiness, and he’d spent most of his adolescence hoping someone like Heath Ledger or Hugh Grant would sweep him off his feet. Kent turned out to be more of the sweeper than the sweeped as he grew older, and he wished that he still had that confidence and spark that had served him well for the past decade.

Kent pulled up amazon on his phone, scrolling through boomboxes on a whim and fell asleep smiling at the idea of romance.

When he woke up the next morning and opened his phone, he was shocked to see that the tab open showed a confirmed order. He had been drunk, but not drunk enough for that. Kit glanced up from where he was licking himself at the bottom of the bed, and Kent swore.

* * *

“I think my cat is trying to get me laid, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Martha didn’t even blink as she tapped her pen against the open notebook in her lap. She was used to tales of Kent’s dalliances after working with him through his career.

“Do you want to get laid?”

“I’d say I’m a little impartial.”

“Kent,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not like you to have difficulty in the seduction department.”

Kent sighed. “Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe I don’t want seduction and hotel room fucks. Maybe I’m getting too old for casual and need the romance, like I’m in a fucking Nicholas Sparks novel.”

Martha frowned slightly, in a considering way. “Is there someone you have in mind, Kent?”

Kent glanced down at his phone, which had a picture of Kit trying to claw his eyes out saved as the lock screen background. He’d finally forgiven Kit for the amazon purchase, once he’d seen how nice the boombox was, but he still didn’t know what to do. Kent hadn’t had a serious relationship since Jack, all those years ago, and he wasn’t exactly sure how to have one.

But he thought of Swoops’ laughter and the way his eyes crinkled when he caught Kent doing something dumb—which was, unfortunately, often. He thought of the texts they’d been sending each other since Kent went back to New Jersey, that hadn’t stopped since he’d returned and resumed taking care of Kit. He thought of the dreams he had, where he always got close to kissing Swoops, but could never quite reach.

Kent ran his fingers through his hair, grabbing hold of the ends of it and tugging.

“Kent?” Martha asked again.

Kent sighed, but not unhappily. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah, I have someone in mind.”

* * *

Kent wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to wear when romancing someone instead of trying to get them into bed. A suit was definitely out of the question, but Kent threw his clothes all over his bed before he finally settled on a patterned t-shirt and shorts that brought out his ass.

The boombox was heavier than he expected, as he heaved it onto his shoulder on the fire escape. He realized that he needed to get through the window before he picked up the boombox after about ten minutes of attempting to shove both it and himself through.

He knew that Swoops was home since he’d sent Kit onto the fire escape to fraternize half an hour before. Kent took a deep breath and started up to the landing between the two floors. He’d considered the classic “In Your Eyes”, but Kent decided to mash up rom-coms with what he knew of Swoops and picked “When I Look At You”. If Kent could’ve crossed his fingers, he would have as the first piano notes blasted out of the boombox.

It didn’t take long for Swoops to notice, and he peeked out of the window with Kit in his arms. He had a grin on his face, and it did wonders to the anxiety threatening to make Kent’s chest implode.

“What’s this?” Swoops called down to him, laughter coloring his voice.

Kent took another deep breath before calling back, “Do you want to go out with me sometime?”

Swoops’ grin got impossibly wider and he crossed the distance between them. Kent set the boombox down at his side and reached out to hold Kit between the two of them. Swoops looked into his eyes, looked at him like Miley Cyrus in the damn song and laughed again.

“I’d like that.”


End file.
